Transcript:
Saturday’s edition of the New York Times ran an editorial the headline of which was,
“Fear Ignorance, Not Muslims.”
And the same day the paper ran an op-ed piece by Timothy Egan, a columnist for the newspaper entitled,
“No More Thoughts and Prayers.”
In one certain sentence in that article he wrote about some he described as cowardly politicians who,
“Will refuse to see that hundreds, maybe thousands of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims find justification for mass murder of innocent people in their holy book.”
To be honest, once I read that sentence I had to sit back and stare at it in disbelief. Here you have a columnist for the most influential newspaper in the world that states that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims who,
“Find justification for mass murder of innocent people in their holy book.”
Reality compels us to state very clearly that 1.6 million Muslims are not at war with the United States or the West and as we have stated emphatically over and over again for that we should be very thankful. But there is a significant number of Muslims who have been radicalized. If you’re looking at a column like this and once again, the columnist said there are hundreds, maybe thousands of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims who been similarly radicalized, his own newspaper reports that there are thousands of jihadist involved with the Islamic State and similar Jihadi movements around the world. We’re not talking about hundreds, we’re talking about thousands, but similarly, there have been reports over and over again, giving headlines that the majority of Muslims in the world find great disdain for ISIS. Once again, that’s very good news, but looking beyond the headlines and looking at the actual report that is here being cited, a report released on November 17 by the Pew Research Center, it’s actually cause for far more alarm than comfort.
Jacob Poushter for the Pew Research Center wrote,
“Recent attacks in Paris, Beirut and Baghdad linked to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have once again brought terrorism and Islamic extremism to the forefront of international relations.”
Then he wrote,
“According to newly released data that the Pew Research Center collected in 11 countries with significant Muslim populations, people from Nigeria to Jordan to Indonesia overwhelmingly expressed negative views of ISIS.”
That is really good news. But there is really bad news underneath that headline. Even if a significant majority of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims oppose ISIS, again that’s very good news, what would the minority constitute? And here’s where pew actually gives us the data, country by country in the 11 countries considered in their research. For example, one of the countries is Malaysia that has 30 million population, 64 percent expressed an unfavorable view of ISIS, that’s good news, 25 percent said they didn’t have an opinion, but 11 percent said they had a favorable opinion of ISIS. Now 11 percent of 30 million is over 3 million people. We’re not talking about hundreds or even thousands, we’re talking about over 3 million who according to this research would at least have a favorable view of ISIS and that’s just Malaysia. In Nigeria, 14 percent had a favorable view, 20 percent said that they had no view. In Pakistan, only 28 percent said that they had a negative view of ISIS, leaving 62 percent saying they had no opinion and 9 percent saying they had a favorable opinion of ISIS. Now Pakistan has a population of 182 million. 9 percent of 182 million is 16.4 million people. Now keep in mind that another 62 percent, the vast majority of those who are in Pakistan, said they had no opinion of ISIS, they certainly do not indicate they have a negative view, that was held only by 28% in Pakistan, and remember, Pakistan is supposed to be one of our most crucial allies in that entire region of the world.
Again, the Pew study considered 11 different countries with large Muslim populations. Just taking the data on the front page of their report, looking at the numbers that Pew cited, we’re talking about the good news that the majority of Muslims around the world do not support the Islamic State, but the bad news is that looking at just three of these 11 countries we’ve come up with what represents about 20 million people who are favorable in the Muslim world to ISIS and that’s counting just three of the 11 countries cited in the report. What we’re looking at here is a vast collision of worldviews and one that secular leaders in Europe and in the United States starting in the White House seem to be incapable of understanding. At its base we’re talking about a worldview conflict between Islam and modernity and what becomes apparent not just looking at the headlines but looking at the very reports that are now being cited there is the indication that there are millions of Muslims around the world who have a favorable view of ISIS, preferring that vision of Islam to that which would accommodate itself to the modern world.
As we’ve had to say of Europe, we now have to say increasingly and depressingly about the United States. A country that has disarmed itself theologically, even from the ability to think in theological terms, now finds itself confronting a determined theological foe and what was clear last night is the continued refusal of President Obama and his administration to come to terms with what we really do face.
Read more + listen: http://www.albertmohler.com/2015/12/07/the-briefing-12-07-15/
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Crosstalk America - Islam's American Agenda
http://onewayjesus.weebly.com/blog/islams-american-agenda
As Muslim population grows, what can happen to a society?
http://onewayjesus.weebly.com/blog/as-muslim-population-grows-what-can-happen-to-a-society
Muslim Opinion Polls - Challenging the 'Tiny Minority of Extremists' Myth http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/opinion-polls.htm
Islam/Muslim statistics on violence, rape, terror, sharia, and Isis (CARM) https://carm.org/islamic-muslim-statistics-on-violence-rape-terror-sharia-isis-welfare